Re: M113K Into a Crossfire - Journal
I did drive it another 35 miles, but each time I went to get on it, either there was too much water on the road (lots of rain today), or when I did find a safe spot to try it, I had a particularly loud voice coming from the passenger seat (Donna) yelling at me to STOP IT!
What I did note is that so long as I stay off the kickdown switch, the whole thing runs like a champ. I will be driving it to work this whole week (62 miles/day), and probably every day until the end of the month, really. Need to get miles on it before the October Crossfires at the Dragon event, about 450miles to the north. Goal is ZERO issues during this ~1200 mile weekend.
This afternoon, the rain came down hard, so while I had my son finishing off the remaining pieces of the carcass that used to be a 2005 SRT6 (preparing it for the crusher late this week), I attempted to swap in the SLK55 R171 seats I recently picked up. I knew I would not be using any of the fancy computers to run the seats, as fitting them into this car, without a CAN-B bus was going to be a bit impractical. My plan instead was to simply swap over the R170 wiring, and then I have some tricks up my sleeve for the Airscarf portion. The electrical bits are the easy part for me.
The good news is that the seats appear that they will simply bolt into the R170. Perfect. Wiring looks straightforward enough. Good. Problem is the trim panel on the side of the seats that the buttons go through. The R171 button panel is not going to work at all, and the R170 plastic trim will not fit the seat at all (mounts completely differently). My next plan will involve a lot of plastic surgery on the panels to cover over the holes for the R171 buttons, but then section out the button panel of the R170 seats, and meld them together - without it looking like some horrible hack job. I decided to put the R170 seat back together, and put it back in the car for now. I have a few other sets of R170 seats, and I will pull a set down to become the donors for this trim panel. Once I get past that, the wiring should take only a couple of hours, and in they will go.
I've read from people on the SLKWorld forum complain to no end about the R171 seats. After sitting in the R170 seats for quite a while, and the "test sits" I have had in the R171 seats on the ground, they seem heavenly.
After that project is complete, I will revisit the fuel rail. I am completely unhappy with mine. The low pressure area around #8 is completely unsatisfactory, and I am amazed the MB engineers let this design go. I imagine all of the M113's suffer on #8, and certainly the M112k must have trouble with #6, as it is an almost identical design. I will add the -6AN fittings to the ends of the "U", just like I have on the current one, but will add a new feed point at the rear center of the rail, hopefully eliminating this spot where low pressure happens at #8. I am also planning on re-powder coating the intake plenums. I thought I'd like the teal color, but the more I see it, the more I do not like it in this car. Just not working with the sapphire silver blue (SSB) paint. Thinking a wrinkle finish with either red or blue, but I am open to suggestions.
After this, I have more exhaust work to do. I am getting a horrible echo effect out of the hollowed out cats (the front ones were crushed/broken in the SRT6 wreck). Will be better off with straight pipes in their place.